Republicans: Health law is a bad deal for young people

Just days after the Obama administration introduced Pajama Boy to urge young adults to sign up for health care, Republicans used their weekly address to tell the same people not to be fooled. Their message: Obamacare is a bad deal for them.

The administration has spent hundreds of millions of dollars trumpeting how affordable Obamacare is for college students and people in their 20s and early 30s. But that’s far from the case, said Rep. Aaron Schock (R-Ill.), who at 31 is part of that demographic and co-founder of the Congressional Future Caucus, which focuses on issues facing millennials.

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“No matter how many actors, and rappers, and rock stars the president rolls out, the best sales pitch in the world can’t sell a bad product,” Schock said Saturday from Eureka College in Illinois.

Obamacare will saddle young people with the medical expenses of older, sicker Americans, according to Schock. Although health costs for a 65-year-old are six times higher than those for an 18-year-old, the health law limits how much that senior can be charged compared to the young enrollee, he said.

“In Washington, they call this ‘community rating,’ but where I come from, we call it a ripoff,” he said.

“Don’t worry about the price tag” may have been the title of the winner of the Young Invincibles’ and White House’s video contest, Schock noted, but price tags are very much on the minds of millennials who are paying off student loans and saving for a first house or other major purchase.

Schock recommended repealing the health care law and creating a law that requires “young people pay their fair share for health care, and nothing more.” The government needs to get out of millennials’ way, and let them make their own choices, he said.

“Let’s give young people the chance to build confidence, give them an incentive to work and save and invest, take risks, and rekindle that entrepreneurial spirit that sets this country apart,” he concluded.